Beyond ‘Benghazi’

What the Libyan debacle means—and doesn’t mean—for Rand Paul’s prospects in the GOP.

When Rand Paul protested the Obama administration’s secretive drone policy by filibustering John Brennan’s nomination to run the CIA, it galvanized the Republican Party. He was joined not just by constitutional conservatives who owed their election to the Tea Party, but mainstream members of the Republican leadership team.

Republicans who had never publicly given much thought to drone strikes before, either in the United States or abroad, wrapped themselves in the mantle of “Stand with Rand.” Republican committees even raised money off the 13-hour filibuster.

Paul’s attempted filibuster of judicial nominee David Barron was less eventful. Barron wrote the controversial legal memo justifying the extrajudicial killing of American citizens. Its legal reasoning was invoked against Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011, on the grounds that Awlaki was a member of al Qaeda.

The junior senator from Kentucky spoke for about a half an hour. There was no great outpouring of Republican support. The one Democrat who crossed party lines to support last year’s filibuster, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, said he respected Paul’s “intellectual rigor” but wound up supporting Barron.

Zack Beauchamp writes that waning interest in drone strikes among Republicans coincides with increasing focus on Benghazi, soon the subject of a select committee investigation. “The more party pushes on Benghazi,” claims Beauchamp, “the more it commits itself to an aggressive foreign policy.”

Certainly that’s a possibility. But it’s worth noting that Paul’s initial drone filibuster succeeded after the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi first became a major concern on the right. Paul’s exchange with Hillary Clinton over the Obama administration’s Benghazi reaction was, in fact, was a huge hit with conservatives over two months before he pivoted to Brennan and drones.

Suffice it to say that Republicans—and particularly Tea Party conservatives—still have competing impulses on foreign policy. Hawkishness may still be the dominant impulse, but that doesn’t mean the foreign-policy debate is altogether lost.

During the drone filibusters, Paul has focused less on the potential blowback from collateral damage overseas than the Bill of Rights implications of striking American citizens. The reason for that is simple: it places the McCain-Graham wing of the party in the position of betting on Barack Obama’s omniscience; it also illustrates the tensions between expansive war powers and constitutionally limited government.

Most conservative Republicans don’t trust Obama’s IRS. Why would they trust him with even a theoretical a presidential kill list? And contra Lindsey Graham, many conservatives don’t think of the United States as a battlefield—they regard it as a constitutional republic.

Benghazi may be a battle cry among GOP hawks, but it also serves as a parable illustrating the perils of feel-good interventionism. The vacuum created by U.S.-led regime change in Libya has clearly unleashed and empowered al-Qaeda and other anti-American terrorist actors. Much the same thing happened on a bigger scale in Iraq, but this war was initiated by a Democratic president without even the modicum of congressional approval sought by George W. Bush, or even the illusion of a connection to 9/11.

No 9/11 connection beforehand, that is. The Benghazi tragedy occurred on the anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the United States.

One can argue, as many Republicans do, that the solution to problems created or exacerbated by military interventions is a bigger military footprint. Boots on the ground in Libya, no withdrawals from Iraq or Afghanistan, no matter what the local governments say.

Yet conservatives have long recognized unintended consequences and sunk costs in other contexts. When billions or trillions have been spent on some unrealized social objective at home, they are the first to object when someone suggests the solution is to spend a few billion or trillion more. They are also the first to question whether Medicaid expansion is more likely to bring about the health outcomes enjoyed by members of Congress—or veterans on waiting lists at the VA.

Alas, conservatives don’t always think this way about war. From Vietnam to Iraq, they have often sounded like heavily armed liberals defending flailing government programs: all that is necessary is more resources and more confidence in the mission. But there is no reason conservatives couldn’t start to think of war and foreign policy this way, especially if conservative leaders they trust start to make this case to them.

Even if such an argument can’t be won in the 2016 primaries, it is still worth having. Yes, it will be more difficult to mobilize conservatives against an interventionist Republican president than a Democratic commander-in-chief. It will still be better in the long term to have prominent conservative skeptics of military adventurism speaking out no matter which party holds the White House.

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12 Responses to Beyond ‘Benghazi’

In fact, it makes me nervous that we have reached some stage where basic constitutional issues are big news. Perhaps, we have reached some critical mass in in our government from which there is no return from a political elite wholly unaccountable to the law much less accountable to the Constitution.

Since Sen. Paul, hasn’t mustered much of his own foreign policy initiative that counters the narrative since 9/11. His leadership hasn’t been much leading as it has been reacting.

Since I don’t buy that legalizing drugs is the answer to criminal justice solutions for black populations, thus far there’s not much to cheer about.

Wow. If the Republican strategy is to run on Benghazi, then they’re in dire shape. This is an issue that resonates with exactly no one other than their own base. It did absolutely nothing for them in 2012, so why do they imagine that recycling it in 2016 will be so much more effective?

In addition to raising the consistency problem that you pointed out–How many of these Benghazi-tards were initially in favor of overthrowing the Lybian government?–it also strongly suggests that the party is bereft of all ideas on any issue that a swing voter might actually give a flying flip about.

So even if he’s a bit of a dark horse candidate himself, I’m starting to think that the Republicans have no hope other than Rand Paul. One thing is certain: the McCain/Graham wing is NOT going to win them the election.

Totally agree it’s an argument the Republicans ought to have. Rand’s dad was certainly swept under the rug in 2001-2003.

But seriously, the Republican caucus would stand with Charles Manson if he were calling out Mr. Obama. And probably successfully raise funds on it, to boot. Let one of theirs get elected next time around, and you won’t be seeing any support for the Pauline wing for… oh, I’d say 4-8 years.

If “Benghazi” means the trivial “scandal” of Obama, Hillary, et al not immediately labeling the attacks with the “T” word, ie “Terrorism,” then it is not worth any serious person’s time. A little spin during election season is hardly the basis for a huge investigation years after the fact. The dead are not dead because of that.

On their deaths generally, meh, four dead diplomats is not exactly a replay of the real 9/11, is it? US targets, including diplomatic ones, have been hit repeatedly, starting with the embassy in Iran in the Carter administration, and also including the deadliest attack yet on US diplomacy, during the Reagan administration, ie the attack on the Beirut embassy. So what?

If the real “debacle” is the Libyan intervention, that is certainly more worthwhile to investigate, although it is going to be a hard case for most DC Republicans to make. They approved Bush’s war in Iraq, which spread Al Qaida to that country. They approve, generally, destabilizing countries in the region, which leads to failed States and fertile terrorist grounds. And many of them actually supported the Libyan intervention as well. Others said that they would support it if a Republican had done it (I think Mitch McConnel said something like that). That being the case, they have very little to credibly say about destabilization in Libya, it becoming an AQ recruiting zone, etc.

So, which of them, really has a leg to stand on? Only those who consistently opposed all such interventions, including Libya AND Iraq, or who approved of all such interventions, but then not only criticized Obama for his hands off policy in the aftermath of the Libyan government falling but also criticized Bush for letting Iraq slip into a lawless State in the aftermath of the Iraqi government falling.

@philadelphialawyer, I tend to agree, but let’s be honest. Ambassador Stevens was most certainly a “diplomat”. I believe the other three who died in Benghazi were not. if my memory is correct, one was a CIA IT type and the other two were former Navy SEALs, who were working for the CIA as private contractors. again, the exact nature of the facility in Benghazi has never been identified. suffice to say, it is not extreme to suggest the two former SEALs “contracted” for more than “security” (like many special operations units, SEALs, are trained in a plethora of counter-terrorism, intelligence, and “direct action” disciplines). if the GOP wants to make political hay via the “what were they doing there?” question, have at it. the fact that an ambassador and three “spooks” died at a possible “black site”, while tragic; does not a scandal make. and “cover-up”? this “scandal” was front page news and all over the digital media since day one. frankly, I think the GOP’s strategy of keeping this alive does more harm than good.

Benghazi is a big deal because it is Hillary who failed to respond, and it is Hillary that Republicans expect to face in 2016. I don’t think the interventionist side of it is what is driving this thing at all. Rand’s speech did not get the attention it got before because the Dems repealed the filibuster rule, but also because it’s difficult to walk on water twice, and because the victim here was not exactly a nice guy. Rand made a point of stressing the rights of the guilty which is never very popular. He might have gotten a little more mileage if he had focused on the innocent Abdulrahman al Awaki, Anwar’s 16-year-old son, and how the “due process” that Obama claims somehow produced a drone for him as well.

“In fact, it makes me nervous that we have reached some stage where basic constitutional issues are big news. Perhaps, we have reached some critical mass in in our government from which there is no return from a political elite wholly unaccountable to the law much less accountable to the Constitution. ”

AS Rand Paul is about the only one addressing this AT ALL; for the sake of discussion I would ask EliteComm WHO he would begin to get excited about; or even take a second look at? Also; legalizing drugs is fundamentally a liberty issue NOT a black crime issue; and do you hear anyone else even mentioning it?

At this point I’d appreciate even these limited overtures to STOPPING THIS MADNESS…not sneer at less than our own ideas of perfection.

You’ll recall that Stevens, a CIA tool, first entered Libya illegally aboard a freighter- from Italy I believe, it was carrying weapons for the terrorists who were then trying to overthrow the internationally recognized Libyan government, Stevens ship docked at Benghazi.
Benghazi was a CIA torture and rendition black site where, among others some Libyan citizens were illegally held (and undoubtedly abused) The purpose of the attack by Libyan “militants” was to free them, and did- how is that terrorism?
Petraeus’s bint, Broadwell, was doing “National Security” lectures (@ $20-$30K a pop) in her capacity as an expert tutored, if that’s the word for it, by Petraaeus, She let the cat out of the bag and that explains the timing of the hurried departure of the previously sainted Petraeus.

Obama, of course, had previously eschewed the use of such torture sites.

The links you provide do suggest that Benghazi may have been a detention site. I don’t see how you immediately jump to the conclusion that the detainees were there via rendition, versus being captured in-country (seems there was plenty of activity going on within Libya if the CIA wanted to grab some bad guys there).

And there’s absolutely suggestion of torture, unless we just take it for granted now that if the CIA holds someone they’ll torture them. Fortunately, there is a chance the legacy/stain of the Cheney years truly are behind us on that count, naive as that hope may be.